The invention relates to a portable system which gives information on the amounts of constituents of foods for health control.
An object of this invention is to provide a system which tells the amounts of nutritive constituents of foods and the total amounts of nutritive constituents of foods taken a day, by arithmetic operation of the amounts of the constituents, of the respective foods taken on that day.
Another object of this invention is to provide a system which reports excessive or insufficient amounts of constituents by a comparison between the total amounts of constituents of foods taken a day and the daily necessary amounts of the constituents.
A further object of this invention is to provide a device to operate said system.
More specifically, the object of this invention is to provide a small, portable device which calculates the amounts of nutritive constituents of the meals of a day, namely breakfast, lunch, supper and snacks separately or in the aggregate, and which also reports what nutritive constituents are excessive or insufficient and by how much, by a display of information in graphic forms or by symbols or animation.
The method of health control varies from one person to another according to the distinction of sex, age, constitution and physical condition. Basically, the important requirements are meals which supply balanced nutritive constituents and a proper amount of exercise.
There has been a mounting concern about health control in recent years. Not only sick persons and dieticians who need to pay special attention to the nutritive constituents of foods, but also people at large, are keenly aware of the need to know the amounts of nutritive constituents contained in meals of the day and want to see if their meals are well-balanced in nutrition.
If, for example, total calorie intake is more than the calories consumed in a day, the excessive calories are conducive to obesity. Obesity gives rise to various geriatric disorders.
To check the possibility of obesity, food constituent tables have been formulated. To examine the contents of daily food intake involves a number of discontinuous processes. This is troublesome work which cannot be done by everybody and at any time.
This work of nutrition check requires steps as follow:
(1) data must be prepared, which includes a table showing the names of foods and the amounts of nutritive constituents contained therein;
(2) from this data, the names of foods must be determined, the amounts of their nutritive constituents must be added up, and the result of addition must be recorded;
(3) then, the amounts of constituents necessary for maintenance of health must be decided on, and excessive or insufficient amounts calculated by comparing the previously recorded amounts of constituents of foods in question with the necessary amounts for hour health; and
(4) the kinds of foods which are to be decreased or added must be determined from the data of step (1) above with reference to the calculated figures of excess or deficiency in nutrition.
Therefore, this work requires the preparation (or purchase) of data, providing for storage area and the calculation of data, and a memory means for storage of the calculated results. This series of processes is so troublesome that this work is not practiced widely, despite the general awareness of the need to know the kinds and amounts of nutritive constituents contained in foods.